OLYMPIA – Social justice issues and the environment will take center stage when hundreds of Catholics from across Washington state lobby their legislators February 20 during Catholic Advocacy Day.

SAN FRANCISCO – Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone of San Francisco is urging Catholics in the archdiocese to join in a novena for the defeat of a “dangerous and unprecedented” bill requiring California State and University of California college health centers to provide medication for abortions.

LOS ANGELES – In a last-minute twist, a California bill that would have required priests to break the sacramental seal of confession was shelved by its sponsor amid a remarkable grassroots campaign mounted by the state’s Catholics, members of other faith groups, and religious liberty advocates from across the country.

WASHINGTON – The chairman of the U.S. bishops’ pro-life committee called on Congress to pass a measure that would stop “the barbaric practice of late-term abortion.”